Mastering with Cool Edit Pro/ Adobe Audition

How to Add LAME MP3 encoder in Adobe Audition or Cool Edit Pro

One of the end result in mastering would be to distribute the masters in MP3 format. In this case, you need to install an MP3 encoder to Adobe Audition. LAME MP3 encoder is the best MP3 encoder that will be able to produce the highest quality MP3 of the WAV version. Yet, this is not added to Adobe Audition by default, because it has its own default MP3 encoder.

The good news is that LAME mp3 encoder is released as an open source project. This means that anyone can use it for free. This tutorial will walk you through the steps of integrating a LAME MP3 encoder to your Adobe Audition DAW software (a.k.a Cool Edit Pro).

2.) After downloading the zip package, right click on “cool_lame.zip” and click “Extract here”. It will then be extracted into a folder named as “cool_lame”. Inside this folder you will find the following files:

Cool Lame files

3.) The only important files in that folder are the following:

a.) cool_lame.flt b.) lame_enc.dll

Copy these two files to your Adobe Audition root directory installation. Your Adobe Audition root directory can be found under Program files folder in your Windows operating system commonly in this path (if your Windows and Program files are installed in Drive C):

C:Program FilesAdobeAudition 1.5

Below is the snapshot of the files inside the Adobe Audition/Cool Edit root directory:

Adobe audition root directory

Copy those two files in that directory. After copying these files, it will look like the one below:

Lame encoder files copied

4.) Launch Adobe Audition. Go to Edit View and open any WAV audio files that you would like to be converted into an MP3 file using LAME encoder.

5.) Supposing you would like to convert the WAV file into a 320 kbps MP3 using CBR (Constant Bit rate). Go to File – Save As – under “Save as Type” select the option “MPEG Layer-3 [LAME]”. Then since you would like to have a 320kbs MP3 CBR, click “Options” and under “Preset” select “CBR” and select “320” under “CBR/ABR bitrate” Do NOT forget to click OK. Screenshot of this process:

Lame configuration settings

6.) Finally when everything is set, click “Save”.

7.) Try playing the MP3 file with your favorite MP3 player; your player should recognize it as a 320 kbps MP3 such as shown below:

MP3 player streaming 320 kbps

Try experimenting with the LAME options to create a diverse type of MP3 file types such as VBR (variable bit rate) or a CBR at different bit rates.

If you like to remove the LAME encoder, simply delete those two files in your Adobe Audition directory.